Lotta those folks are poor or very poor. New Orleans is a poor city, and Louisiana is a poor state. Some of those poor folks are on welfare, some not, but are poor in any case. For those on the dole, end of the month=no cash. If they aren't on the dole, but just lower-income, no savings, as they live paycheck to paycheck. And credit cards? A pipe dream for most poor folks.
Lotta those folks didn't have cars. If they had cars, no money for gas. Ever been poor? You put gas in the car $5 at a time, which at $2+ a gallon ain't gonna get you too far, especially when the highways out of town are JAMMED.
If you're fortunate enough to have a car and enough cash for gas to get outta town, what then? Sleep in the ditch? A motel is a minimum of $45-50+ a night. If you're lucky enough to have a couple hundred bucks put away, you're already looking for a place to live.
If you're REALLY lucky, you might have family outta town who you can stay with, if you can get to them. What then? How do you eat? Your job - if you have one - is gone, as the city is under water. Your home is gone, as are most if not all your possessions. You're out of cash, you have no charge cards to run up, and if you did, you couldn't pay the bill, since you have no job and no savings. Do you just abandon your home, your livelihood (such as it is), your life, your family?
Lot of the folks you're seeing on TV were probably born and raised in NOLA. It's tougher than you can possibly imagine (unless you've been there) to be forced out of your home for ANY reason, especially if you've lived there your entire life.
As for the voters to the polls business - those "get-out-the-vote" things are done for - what? One day, and planned for MONTHS in advance, with volunteers. Around my part of the world, it's only a relative handful who are actually taken to the polls - on the order of a few hundred. We're talking about tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who need evacuation here. It takes a massive effort - one that couldn't have been done in any case.
Blaming any government agency for not evacuating people is asinine, unless you're talking about the very young and very old and infirm. That they haven't been evacuated yet - four days after the storm ended - IS a travesty. That serious efforts only seem to have begun today is a further travesty.
SW